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Redhead alert

Carry on David Tennant as the Doctor, Catherine Tate as
Donna.Photo: BBC/Adrian Rogers

July 12, 2008

WE ALL know, deep in our hearts, that when we stray from the
path, salvation can almost certainly be found in a rundown, rural
footy team and the local bakery that inexplicably relies on the
success or existence of the football team for its survival. (If the
team loses they must merge with another team and lose the bakery.)
And we also know that nobody these days strays further from the
path than the wildly successful, adulterous, drunken sports
star.

So a drama that takes us back into rural Australia and
reacquaints us with the kind of slightly comical characters that
made A Country Practice appealing should be a good thing. We
could expect a charming parable about the evils of globalisation as
we go on a journey with the fallen sports star who is forced to
coach the failing football team and learns all about himself.

The team and the town learn, like Dorothy, that the power to
control their destiny was always within their own hands and
probably that there is no place like home. Add a few long-standing
issues of a xenophobic and unreconciled indigenous nature, a
good-looking, talented cast, some kissing - and a Sunnyboys song -
and, honestly, Valentine's Day should be a winner.

And yet, it's another work of formula, a perfectly acceptable
packet cake when we're desperate for something home-made. Was
everybody just trying too hard or do these motivational homilies
just make audiences want to puke? There are some great moments in
Peter Temple's script. For the most part, the very talented Peter
Duncan directs a classy cast to some of their finest performances.
Most of the drunk acting, the ashamed acting and the country loser
acting is full of heart and nuance. Without a feature-film budget,
Duncan achieves some very evocative, honest rural pictures.

Rhys Muldoon has more than enough range, comic timing and appeal
to carry a Sunday night movie. He even sings at the end, with the
band, and he's good. Freya Stafford, Anita Hegh and Michael Tuahine
all do their thing convincingly. But the final product, while
entirely watchable, is ever so slightly disappointing.

The flag that has dogged all of the ABC's local Sunday night
productions this year is raised again: the contrived flag. These
are some of the best people working in our industry today. Why are
all of these potentially pleasing missiles just missing?

At least the misfire isn't solely a local problem. The first new
episodes of Doctor Who don't seem quite right but this time
I'm blaming Catherine Tate. David Tennant's reincarnation and the
quality of the recent scripts seem to have attracted every major
talent in Britain. A cameo with the Doctor is like a guest spot on
The Simpsons. It's a badge of honour.

Understandably, as Tate is the wildly versatile funny lady du
jour, she's moved into the Tardis, with mixed results. We have to
suspend a fair bit of disbelief to get on board with everybody's
favourite Time Lord, even with superior scripts, budgets and
special effects. Already Tennant's winking, comic charm has made
the franchise more broadly appealing than previous nerdier
Doctors.

But when both leads have funny bones, when the story involves an
extreme dieting conspiracy where the fat is harvested from obese
Britons to make babies for beings from another thingy and when the
fat-babies are animated globules that leap from the back-fat of
women in pubs you can see how that sort of material might
not benefit from the inclusion of a wild-eyed redhead who makes
Lucille Ball look shy. This week they go to Rome - well, Pompeii -
on "volcano day", as the Doctor so succinctly points out. It leans
heavily towards Carry On Up The Toga territory.

No togas to been seen in the first episode of Project Runway
Australia but I think I'm in love. After the initial shock of
hearing Aussie voices playing dress-ups in a Melbourne version of
the Parsons School of Design, it is all fierce and fabulous.

You really can't see Heidi Klum's lips move or her hand shoved
up Kristy Hinze's dress as our very own lethal blonde utters the
immortal words: "In fashion one day you're in, the next you're out
" After the execution, sadly, no "Auf wiedersehen". Kristy,
is it too late for "Oo-roo"? Surely not.